


Again / Again / Again

by roysauce



Series: Sharp as a Blade (and Just as Dangerous) [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Byleth Eisner's Unconventional Teaching Methods: The Fic, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28150500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roysauce/pseuds/roysauce
Summary: Hubert breathes deep through his nose, expels it silently and readjusts his gloves before squaring his shoulders and reassuming his form.One two three, one two three, the Professor counts, monotone, as Hubert pushes himself into the motions of the waltz, feet following the same pattern that they’ve been following for the last three hours.Hubert performs the waltz perfectly. Hasbeenperforming it perfectly. Every movement precise, not so much as amuscleout of place, and yet-"Again."He does not know what shewants from him.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Hubert von Vestra
Series: Sharp as a Blade (and Just as Dangerous) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2062224
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	Again / Again / Again

**Author's Note:**

> It's not New Years yet, but my resolution is to write more one-shots. I literally got my start writing them, used to crank 'em out like nobody's business, but for some reason since like 2015-ish I haven't been able to write anything that wasn't multichaptered or otherwise incredibly long.
> 
> So have 1900 words of whatever the hell this is.

No matter what the students of Garreg Mach—or Lady Edelgard—may say, having Professor Eisner’s undivided attention is in no way a blessing.

“Again.” The Professor’s voice cracks like a whip in the stillness of the training ground, hard and unsympathetic.

The sun has long since set, dull purple-orange replaced by the blue-white light of the moon as it creeps into view, casting shadows, sharp and sinister, over every exposed surface, “Perhaps we should call it a night, Professor.” Hubert suggests coolly, patience beginning to wear thin.

“ _Again_.” Professor Eisner repeats, brows narrow.

Hubert breathes deep through his nose, expels it silently and readjusts his gloves before squaring his shoulders and reassuming his form. _One two three, one two three_ , the Professor counts, monotone, as Hubert pushes himself into the motions of the waltz, feet following the same pattern that they’ve been following for the last three hours.

Hubert performs the waltz perfectly. Has _been_ performing it perfectly. Every movement precise, not so much as a _muscle_ out of place, and yet-

“Again.”

He does not know what she _wants from him_.

“Professor,” Hubert begins, and it takes everything he has to watch his tone, because Professor Eisner hadn’t taken it well the last time he’d been short with her—and _no_ , Hubert does not care for her opinion, is not like his idiot classmates, always falling over themselves to please her—but he could do without having to stand at the blackboard writing ‘ _I will not threaten the faculty’_ over and over and _over_ again as the rest of the class sits in their lecture, snickering into their fists behind his back.

“It is very late.” Hubert finally settles on, and he wants to follow it up with something, but he hasn’t any idea what he could possibly say right now that wouldn’t sound like an order. (‘ _I will not tell Professor Eisner what to do_ ,’ He’d written, dozens upon dozens of times until the chalk pinched between his fingers was barely a nub and Caspar’s face was bright red with the effort it was taking for him not to burst into laughter.) So, he does not say anything at all- just lets the proclamation sit there.

Professor Eisner looks at him—impassive, emotionless.

“Very well.” She finally says, and if Hubert were a lesser man, he might let his shoulders slump in relief at the statement, “We will resume tomorrow directly after class.” Hubert bristles, pulls in another long breath through his nose and very nearly says something vaguely threatening again before the Professor saves him from himself with a cool wave of her hand and a clipped, “Dismissed.”

Hubert bows, mockingly as he can without being overtly aggressive.

***

“ _Professor_.” Hubert says on the eave of the fourth day, dropping his arms and stepping out of his waltz to glare at the woman in question.

Professor Eisner lifts her chin and meets his eyes. Her head tips subtly, not quite in question.

“Hubert.”

Hubert fumes silently, brain completely devoid of articulate thought.

Professor Eisner stares him down mutely, waiting.

He wants to _scream_ —wants to grip her by the throat and _squeeze_.

Instead, he takes a calming breath and says, patience hanging by a thread, “It is very late.”

The Professor does not concede to the time as she has every night before when he has told her as much. She merely stands there, watching him. A long moment passes before she opens her mouth to say,

“Again.”

Hubert feels his nostrils flare, “No.”

Professor Eisner’s brows narrow, “ _Again_.”

Hubert sets his jaw, “ _No_.”

The Professor moves in a blur—goes from stone-still to too-fast for Hubert’s eyes to properly track. Hubert reacts instinctively, mind blanking as he drops the dagger from his sleeve and jerks his arm up to parry the Professor’s blade. A vice-grip clamps around Hubert’s wrist before he can retaliate, immobilizing it.

Hubert lets loose the dagger in his opposing sleeve, but before he can do anything with it, the Professor’s boot is hooking around his ankle and jerking forward as she throws her weight against his chest. Hubert lands hard against the ground, skull connecting painfully with the dirt as the Professor lands atop him, one knee pinning each arm down while her blade is thrust purposefully against his throat.

A moment passes, silent, as Hubert’s mind catches up to the proceedings.

The Professor’s hair hangs around them like a curtain, blocking out their surroundings and narrowing Hubert’s world down to the shape of her face.

“Dead.” She declares, not even a little out of breath.

A moment more and she shifts, hopping herself up from her knees to pin Hubert’s arms with the toes of her boots, seating herself over him in a crouch as she shifts her blade from his throat to lever the tip in the dirt beside his neck. She leans her weight onto it, angling it dangerously close to his airway again as she uses it to push herself up.

The Professor steps backwards off Hubert, one hand coming to push back her hair as the other recalls her blade, wiping the dirt that’s gathered on the tip off on the thigh of her stockings before slipping it back into its sheath. Silently, she leans over and extends that same hand down towards Hubert, face impassive.

Hubert, still not entirely sure what’s just happened, takes it dumbly—grips Professor Eisner’s fist tight as she levers him off the ground with far more strength than her slight frame would suggest her capable of.

She pulls him up, up, _in_. Hubert suddenly finds her inserted right into his personal space—or, perhaps more accurately, finds himself inserted right into _hers_ —and then she’s loosening her grip, but not enough to let go. Her other hand falls to rest against his waist as she moves one of her boots to nudge Hubert’s feet into motion.

“Again.” She says simply, pulling him seamlessly into a far-too-fast waltz.

Hubert, who is left with little choice but to keep up or fall over, complies.

They spin and spin and spin, and Hubert is very disoriented still, and he’s not felt the need to watch his feet while dancing since he was a child, but now he’s very nearly tripping over Professor Eisner’s toes and dearly wants to. When he tries, however, she merely spins them faster.

“ _Professor!_ ” Hubert urges, clumsily stumbling over the Professor’s feet.

“Hubert.” Professor Eisner replies mildly, sounding pleased by his bumbling.

 _Slow down_ , he wants to snap at her.

“ _Professor- please!_ ” He chokes instead, far less composed than he’d like to be.

Professor Eisner does not relent- instead, she adds a step that does not exist, pushes Hubert away from her before jerking him back and spinning him into a different dance entirely.

Hubert is beginning to think the fault was not with him, after all—he had been dancing perfectly before, he’d known he had been, but the Professor had him repeat the motions for so long that he’d begun to _doubt_ —that the issue is simply that, while Professor Eisner clearly seems capable of dancing, she does not seem to understand the _speed_ at which one is _supposed to do it_.

This new dance is… rounding. Bustling in the way Professor Eisner cants her hips as she twirls them, pushes and pulls with her arms as her feet deftly follow an intricate pattern of back-and-forth steps. She seems to take pity on Hubert, now that they’re dancing something clearly unknown to him—allows him to look down, to rush to adjust his footing lest one of them be stepped on.

It’s all that he can do to keep up with her that Hubert hardly has the mind to think on _what_ they’re doing now and _why_ —not with his skull still reeling from its jarring introduction to the ground and his vision blurring into dizzying streaks with how fast Professor Eisner is silently insisting they move.

Hubert’s heel catches suddenly on one of his daggers- forgotten on the floor of the training ground after their earlier scuffle- and he trips backwards. Professor Eisner trips after him and Hubert’s eyes widen, half at the oncoming fall and half at the laughter that bubbles bright and delighted through her lips, so uncharacteristic and incompatible with the stoic woman he’d come to know her as.

One of Professor Eisner’s legs extends as she shifts to rearrange them before they can hit the ground, one boot planting firm in the dirt then pivoting in an act of counterbalance. They stumble off a few more steps, dizzily riding out the current of movement, eventually coming to a staggering standstill.

Clumsily, they sway in place, the professor’s hands clasped loosely over Hubert’s lapels as breathless chuckles continue to spill through her lips. Her head is dipped, face to the ground, but Hubert can see the corners of her mouth pulled tight, see the way her usually sharp cheeks have rounded out into something almost cherubic against the exuberant shape of her smile.

When they finally come to a complete stop, Hubert’s chest is heaving from the effort as Professor Eisner’s laughter trickles off. Her head angles up a bit, observing her hands as they work the creases out of his lapels while Hubert stares down at her in absolute befuddlement.

He has… absolutely no idea what just happened. Or what is currently happening, for that matter.

Professor Eisner finishes her task and looks up at him, eyes alight with something dangerously resembling _joy_ and crinkling at the corners in a way that only truly genuine expressions ever seem to.

Hubert, who has never seen the woman look anything else but the very picture of militant composure, just stares at her dumbly.

Her lips purse a moment before falling out of the motion, gaze quickly dancing from Hubert’s face to where her hands still rest on his chest to his face again. Finally, her smile twists as she reaches to brush his shoulders off and steps backwards out of his space—Hubert’s hands follow after her waist a moment, before he realizes what he’s doing and promptly stops to wonder when they even got there in the first place.

“Very good,” She tells him, though he hardly hears it—is too busy fixating on the way the moonlight seems dance in her eyes while wondering if he split his skull open earlier and is presently bleeding out while having some very interesting trauma-induced delusions.

It would certainly make more sense than… whatever it is that’s happening right now.

She takes another step back, bringing her arms up, fingers knitting together to pull her body into a vertical stretch, eyes briefly fluttering closed. Hubert’s gaze drops to her stomach, bared by the cut-out of her top, eyes involuntarily drawn to the line of her naval.

Professor Eisner turns on her heels and releases her stretch as she begins to walk, startling Hubert into a blink as he finds himself suddenly making eye contact with the dimples at the small of her back. Her arms extend backwards, pushing her shoulder blades together briefly as she stretches back then out, canting her head aside to roll her neck for a moment before flicking a halfhearted wave off to the side.

“It’s late,” She calls idly over her shoulder, barely tipping her head back to make sure her voice carries, “Go get some sleep, Hubert.”

And with that, she’s gone, pushing lazily out of the training grounds.

 _What_ , Hubert thinks, blinking stupidly at the doors as they swing shut behind her.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always super appreciated!
> 
> ~~( & kudos to those who got what the point of Byleth's "lesson" was)~~
> 
> EDIT 12/22/2020: Despite my best effort at leaving this as a one-off, I find myself writing more for this 'verse. I'm going to leave this fic marked as "complete" but know that it is entirely likely that there will be a part 2 and maybe more, because I know myself well enough to know that I've got a Problem at keeping things short. I haven't decided yet whether I'll post it as a second chapter on this, or as it's own work, though, so if that sounds interesting to you, follow _Sharp as a Blade (And Just as Dangerous)_ to stay in the loop!


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